At six o'clock Basil came for Ethel. Mrs. McMahon greeted him rather
more kindly than usual, and he noticed it with some surprise, for he was
always conscious that the old lady did not care much for him. A
humble-minded man, and bitterly conscious of his unsuccessful life, he
was certain that such a radiant being as Ethel was a thousand times too
good for him, and was even inclined to acquiesce in the old lady's
estimate in a way that provoked his fiancee enormously.
He noticed also that in addition to the access of kindliness, there was
a distinct patronage in Mrs. McMahon's manner. Her usual despondency
seemed to have disappeared. She spoke largely and vaguely of "the
future." He could not understand it at all.
"What on earth has happened to your mother?" he asked Ethel, as they
descended the stone stairs towards the street. "I never saw her so
chirpy, darling."
Ethel hesitated for a moment. She was bright and animated herself, and
she pressed his arm affectionately before replying. She was so
accustomed to share her every hope and thought with her lover that she
found it difficult to frame a suitable reply. "Oh, well, you know,
mother has ups and downs like the rest of us," she said at length.
"To-day she is in particularly good spirits."
Basil sighed. "I wish I had the recipe," he said; "try to get it from
her. It would be particularly useful just now."
"Are you depressed, dear?" the girl asked.
"Horribly; things seem worse than ever. Oh, Ethel, darling, it is
dreadful to say so, but I do not think we shall ever be married!"
"You are not to talk like that, Basil; it is perfectly ridiculous, and I
won't have it. Look at me. Am I depressed?"
"No," the man answered, looking wonderingly at her. "You have caught
your mother's mood. But the last time we were out together, if you
remember, you were as sad as I. We walked about the Luxembourg Gardens
for an hour bewailing our lot."
"Yes, and after dinner we were as happy as possible, and made all sorts
of plans. We furnished the drawing-room that evening, I think--or was it
the dining-room?"
Basil laughed, but there was no mirth in his laughter. "It doesn't
matter much," he replied, "but to-night I do not think I could take any
interest in the attics of our Castle in Spain. For that's what it is,
dearest, at present, and that's what I am sure it will remain."
"I have told you before, Basil, that you are not to talk like that. I
simply won't have it. _Entend-tu?_ Has anything happened to make you
feel more despondent than usual?"
"Well, not exactly, and yet in a way there has, though it is only a
little thing."
"Tell me, dear."
"Oh, only that Deschamps has suddenly grown quite extraordinary in his
manner. You know what absolute friends we were?"
"I know," she nodded. "Have I not been horribly jealous of you two at
times, sitting correcting exercises in that dreadful school in the
evening, and thinking of you two men talking away together without
anyone to interrupt?"
Man-like, Basil Gregory did not quite appreciate the underlying feeling
in this remark.
"It has simply kept me alive," he went on, "and kept hope burning within
me to be with Emile Deschamps. You see, our invention is just as much
his as mine. We have worked it out together as if with one mind. Our
interests are absolutely identical."
"But I don't exactly understand what has happened, Basil."
"His manner has absolutely changed ever since last night, when we had
quite an adventure, he and I."
"An adventure?" she asked quickly. "And what was that?"
In reply Basil told her the whole history of the fantastic night. He
told it well, warming to the work as he did so, and she saw the picture
unfold itself--the queer, bird-like little men, the huge workshop with
its strange implements, the welcome hospitality.
"And then," he concluded, "it turned out that they were hereditary
makers of the roulette wheels for the gambling at Monte Carlo. They have
made them for ever so many years, and they were just employed upon the
last wheel of all on that very night. They are going to resign their
position. They have made sufficient money upon which to live, and a
young nephew of theirs, who gambled at Monte Carlo with money that was
not his own, and afterwards committed suicide, has disgusted them, very
naturally, with the whole thing."
Ethel's reply amazed him.
They were approaching the Rue Crois de Petits Champs, and she stopped
upon the pavement and positively clutched his arm.
"And will the wheel you saw actually be used at Monte Carlo?" she asked
in a voice that had suddenly become almost breathless.
He nodded, too surprised to speak.
"And you touched it?"
"Oh, yes; I twirled the beastly thing round, if that's what you mean.
But why all this interest?"
Again for a moment she answered nothing, though her face had grown
suddenly pale from excitement.
"I cannot tell you," she said at length, "though it may seem strange to
you. It is a sudden thought, that is all. And, oh, Basil, dear, I
somehow believe that it is a good omen, that it means fortune for both
of us. Oh, I'm certain of it."
"What a queer little darling you are!" he said, with a laugh at her
earnest manner. "But we must not block up the pavement like this. Come
along."
They went onwards to their destination, a quaint little restaurant known
as the "Restaurant de l'Universe et Portugal," which they had discovered
some weeks before, and where one could get a really excellent dinner for
two francs fifty a head.
For the remaining three minutes of their walk neither of them said
anything. Every pulse in Ethel's body was leaping with excitement.
The coincidence was too strange. She was not more superstitious than
most people, though like most people she had an undefined though real
belief in premonitions and omens. And in this case the wish was indeed
father to the thought. She had been so carried away by the minor success
of the ticket in the first instance, and by her mother's plan in the
second, that Basil's story seemed almost a direct and miraculous
confirmation of her hopes. When they were seated at their accustomed
table in the corner of the quiet little restaurant, and a delicious _pot
au feu_ was before them, she began to ply her lover with eager
questions, making him recount every detail of the previous evening. He
told her all that she wished to know, but suddenly she noticed that his
face was still sad, and his eyes dreamy and introspective.
She remembered with a pang of accusation what he had been saying about
Emile Deschamps.
"Oh, Basil," she said with pretty penitence, "here am I bothering you
about last night, and you have not even told me what you were going to
about Monsieur Deschamps. You said something had depressed you--some
change in him?"
"Well, it has," the young man replied. "When we got home in the early
morning to our hotel we neither of us wanted to go to bed, so we lit the
stove and sat up in my room. I could not get Emile to say a word. He
absolutely refused to discuss the events in the Rue Petite Louise. He
scowled at me when I tried to draw him into conversation, as if I were
trying to do him some injury. I have never known him like that. After
about an hour I lay down on the bed and went to sleep, till they brought
our morning coffee.
"About ten we walked to the works together. We have been there all day
till just before I came to fetch you. Upon the way Emile was just as
moody and brusque as ever. As he did not want to talk about those two
kindly little men, I thought I would try another tack, and I began to
discuss a detail of our invention. It is an improvement upon what we
have already done, and at ordinary times such a thing would never fail
to interest him."
"And didn't he rise to that?" Ethel asked.
"Never a bit. And that disturbed me more than ever, for it is so unlike
him. All day he has been the same. We usually go to _dejeuner_ together
at a little cafe close to the works. This morning he positively refused
to come with me, and, when I asked why, he insulted me. He was like a
bear with a sore head."
"And you went alone?"
"Yes, and I have been alone ever since, and have been brooding over the
position and got myself into a thoroughly depressed state of mind."
"Well, never mind, dear," Ethel replied, "get out of it now. How good
this omelette is! And the wine, too; really, I think the _vin ordinaire_
here is better than anywhere else in Paris. Cheer up, old boy, because I
am perfectly certain that everything is going to come right, and more
quickly than you have any idea of."
She spoke the last words with meaning, and Basil looked at her, trying
to read her face.
"Have you got something at the back of your mind, sweetheart?" he asked.
She nodded. She could not help it.
"There is something," she said--"a little something. I cannot tell you
now, because it is not my secret, but wait and see. You will know more
before long. For my part, I feel more happy and hopeful than I have been
since our engagement."
For a moment he caught something of her gaiety. He lifted his glass, and
drank. "To the future," he said, but the momentary animation flickered
out, and it was a silent and sorrowful young man who kissed her farewell
about half-past nine, at the corner of the street in which was the
establishment for young ladies of the Demoiselles de Custine-Seraphin.